1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information providing method for providing provision information registered in a central apparatus by a request for receipt of a plurality of terminal devices connected to the central apparatus through a communication network.
2. Description of Related Art
In an organization such as universities or companies, there has been built a network in which information to be provided are registered in a central apparatus such as a WWW server computer and information required for students or employees are read or downloaded through a browser or the like, thereby sharing provision information. Such network is built in an intranet of the organization, and furthermore, desired information can be acquired through the Internet on the outside of the intranet if necessary.
However, in the case where the information are registered in the central apparatus, a third person can freely acquire the information. Therefore, there has been a problem in that information having a high secrecy cannot be registered easily. Moreover, provision information (information to be provided) such as a research paper, a research thesis or an operation manual has such a high literary property that they can be read but a problem arises if original data themselves are freely copied and easily reused. For this reason, original data of such provision information itself cannot be registered in many cases.
Referring to information having a high literary property such as a research thesis and information for individuals such as notification matters to be given from an academic adviser to students, moreover, it is necessary to disclose a provider name and to make the source of the provision information clear. On the other hand, referring to general matters having a low literary property such as information about employment, the opening time of a cafeteria or information about no class, it is not necessary to specially make a provider name clear. Alternatively, it is not desired that the personal name of the provider is known in some cases.
In the case where provision information having a large data volume such as a motion picture is to be provided, furthermore, a hindrance is not particularly occurred in an intranet under an excellent communication environment having a communication capability in a giga-unit, for example. In the case where the motion picture is to be provided through the Internet having a poor communication environment, a traffic between a central apparatus and a terminal device is greatly influenced.